You seem to think that missile launch detectors are only IR sensors, and you seem to be fixating and stereotyping a particular package and a particular part of the package.

MLD are usually an IR sensor + an UV sensor. The IR would detect the heat of the missile, while the UV would detect the plume of the rocket motor. Also, the EF has a radar-type MLD. There are spread over the airframe so they provide a 360 deg. coverage. From the rest of the sensors you mention, only an RWR would alarm the pilot that an radar guided missiles is comming, albeit it won’t help in the case of an IR missile. All the other sensors won’t give 360 deg coverage, which is the main reqirement of a MLD, not to mention that will detect a missile launch only by accident–they are not built for that.

Sometimes some of the weapons we sell to our allies is more advanced than what we can afford to commonly field ourselves.

Yes and no. The most recent case of a better fighter for export was F 16 the blk. 60. It’s true that the F 16s of the USAF are less sophisticated than the blk. 60 exported to UAE, but these ones became operational almost in the same time with the F 22, so USAF keept its edge.

Surely a radius of 400 nm including 100 nm supercruise is 800 nm total (400 out, 400 back), of which 200 nm (100 out, 100 back) is supercruise? In this case, you’re talking of 300 nm of supercruise (150 out, 150 back), plus an unknown amount of subsonic loitering & a short A/B dash. Not necessarily inconsistent with that 400 nm radius.

I still believe that’s more than the 400Nmiles subsonic +100 Nmiles supersonic. The short A/B dash was followed by another supercruise dash to the target. The airspace area was 140 Nmiles X 120 Nmiles (with the tankers orbiting outside this area).

You’re forgetting one thing…. range with full fuel delivered in flight is a lot greater that range on full fuel taking off. The overall range on full tanks may be 400NM taking off, climbing out, performing the mission, and returning. If you start from the same point overhead with full tanks, then you save the fuel needed for takeoff and climbout.

In the exercise the Raptor have to take off and land as in an unrefuelled mission.

That’s one thing that always bothered me when arguing over various aircrafts’ useful range. Very few fighters take off and perform their mission without some sort of A-A refueling these days.

Correct. I remember I red somewhere that in 1991 Gulf War the F 15E needed 3 refuelings in some missions! And this is an A/C that can take-off with 15 tons of fuel (internal+3 bags+2 CFTs).

@Aurcov,
the blue side might only had 4 F-22, but there were other fighters on the blue side as well. Meaning no 4 VS 40.

. Didn’t say that. Moreover in the article it’s mentioned that in the “blue” team there were 24 planes. OTOH the “red” team “regenerated” into 103 sorties. But the Raptors allows this score. Also in CodeOne there is a recent article about this exercise:

Achieving nine aerial victories on a single mission qualifies for bragging rights in any fighter pilot circle even if those victories occur in simulated Red/Blue engagements. An F-22 pilot from the 27th Fighter Squadron from Langley AFB, Virginia, accomplished that very feat in June at Northern Edge exercises in Alaska. Six AMRAAMs, two Sidewinders, and one burst of rounds from a Gatling gun account for the total. Nine may not be the ultimate maximum: he had ammunition left in the gun. For aviation history buffs, nine victories equal the real-world US record of Cmdr. David McCampbell, an F6F Hellcat pilot and the Navy’s leading ace in World War II.

“The nine-kill mission may get a lot of exposure,” says Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron. “Was it cool? Yes. But working with F-15s and F-18s to produce a kill ratio of eighty-three to one that day was way cooler. Not the fact that one F-22 happened to produce nine of those eighty-three hits.” Firsts And Results
Northern Edge is the first major exercise for the F-22. It is also the first Raptor deployment outside the continental United States. More importantly, though, deploying 3,200 miles nonstop and operating at a new base put new aircraft to a real test. Did the F-22 succeed?

“Yes, we succeeded,” answers Tolliver. “The day after the first jets landed, we flew thirteen sorties, and that was with ten aircraft since the remaining two arrived the next day. This fact in itself is an awesome accomplishment and proves the Raptor can deploy and be an immediate contributor to joint or coalition forces.”

Tolliver’s opinions are backed by additional statistics. On one particular mission, though comprising just thirty-three percent of the total Blue air-to-air forces, F-22s managed to eliminate sixty-six percent of the threats. The aerial victory ratio for the Raptor in the first week of the exercise alone was 144-to-zero losses. (For those paying close attention, the one loss in the eighty-three-to-one mission was an F-15.) For the entire two-week exercise, the Raptor comprised just thirty percent of the Blue Air, yet managed to defeat almost half of the overall threats.

The Raptor did more than defeat aerial threats. The Langley-based F-22s dropped twenty-six Joint Direct Attack Munitions while working with ground-based forward air controllers. All twenty-six bombs were direct hits. Many of the pilots, who mostly flew air-to-air combat missions in F-15Cs, were dropping bombs for the first time in this exercise. Northern Edge was the first time operational F-22 pilots dropped munitions while working with forward air controllers in a close air support role.

Of the 105 scheduled Raptor sorties in the exercise, 102 actually launched. This ninety-seven percent sortie generation rate for the twelve deployed F-22s certainly contributed to the overall results: aircraft availability being a prerequisite for combat effectiveness. “The ability to work away from the support and supply structure of our home station and still produce such high sortie generation figures is arguably the largest success of the entire Alaska deployment,” says Tolliver.

More Subtle Firsts
The F-22 can claim another first in this Northern Edge: the first time the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine units combined F-22s and F/A-18s to fly integrated defensive counter air tactics. “The integration of this fifth-generation aircraft with our legacy forces creates a much more lethal and survivable force than we have ever seen before,” explains Tolliver. “The F-22’s sensors and the integrated avionics produced so much battlespace awareness that we were able to share critical information with other platforms.” This sharing increased the lethality and survivability of less-capable fighters. “That is truly transformational. We can complement, direct, and assist other platforms from the cockpit of our single-seat fighters. Even though we have never functioned as joint forces before, we found it works great.”

Capt. Schantz adds some specifics. “F-22 pilots have the ability to use sensors to a greater degree than any other fighter pilots because of the Raptor’s sensor fusion capability,” he explains. “The F-22 scope is fully integrated to show the entire battlespace. In the heat of the fight, we can provide necessary information to other pilots at that right moment because we are fighter pilots talking to other fighter pilots.”

Schantz explains that, even though an AWACS has thirty radar controllers aboard with a lot of combined situational awareness, information on their scopes is displayed as radar blips. “Our F-22 blips show what type of aircraft we’re seeing,” he says. “The information is deciphered for us so that we can sort friend from foe much more easily.”

The Raptor starts with more situational awareness than an F-16, F-15, or F/A-18. “The Raptor is a light year ahead of those fighters,” explains Brig. Gen. Burton Field, commander of the 1st FW at Langley. “Assessing the situation and melding the radar picture of a four-ship so everyone has the same situational awareness can be extremely demanding in fourth-generation fighters.”

The Raptor begins with immediate situational awareness that can be provided to other assets in the fight. “We can make each one of those players better, and we can make the entire force better. Sharing that situational awareness at the right time and in the right manner requires a different skill set than the one needed to operate a legacy fighter effectively. Those new skills are more associated with the skills of a mission commander.”

Mission commander or battle manager may not be the right term. “I don’t think we have an accepted term for the function of a Raptor pilot in a large-scale force,” Field continues. “We aren’t necessarily in charge of the fight, but we can play a more prominent role in the fight than any other aircraft. I don’t think we have the vocabulary or the tactical mindset that fits the capabilities offered by the F-22. We may not have the operational mindset either.”

Tolliver describes the aerial scene: “During that mission, our Blue forces faced the heaviest air threat we’ve seen in recent history. The total mission or vulnerability time was two and one-half hours. Those flying as Red Air developed their own tactics. In a single vulnerability period, they would use mass forces to try to overrun our Blue forces. At other times, they sent successive waves of smaller individual packages in a variety of tactics. To generate the numbers, Red Air returned to a simulated base to regenerate. Actually, they went to a tanker to get fuel and then came back to create additional threats.”

“The pilot with nine simulated kills flew as my wingman that day,” explains Capt. Harry Schantz, the safety officer for the 27th FS. “His nine kills were a function of the situation. We were making sure everyone could get gas, and we were keeping our area safe. We tried to shoot every missile we had. Red Air threats were almost overwhelming, but we handled every one of them. We averaged five to six kills per F-22 pilot on busy missions like that during the exercise.”

Firsts And Results
Northern Edge is the first major exercise for the F-22. It is also the first Raptor deployment outside the continental United States. More importantly, though, deploying 3,200 miles nonstop and operating at a new base put new aircraft to a real test. Did the F-22 succeed?

“Yes, we succeeded,” answers Tolliver. “The day after the first jets landed, we flew thirteen sorties, and that was with ten aircraft since the remaining two arrived the next day. This fact in itself is an awesome accomplishment and proves the Raptor can deploy and be an immediate contributor to joint or coalition forces.”

Tolliver’s opinions are backed by additional statistics. On one particular mission, though comprising just thirty-three percent of the total Blue air-to-air forces, F-22s managed to eliminate sixty-six percent of the threats. The aerial victory ratio for the Raptor in the first week of the exercise alone was 144-to-zero losses. (For those paying close attention, the one loss in the eighty-three-to-one mission was an F-15.) For the entire two-week exercise, the Raptor comprised just thirty percent of the Blue Air, yet managed to defeat almost half of the overall threats.

The Raptor did more than defeat aerial threats. The Langley-based F-22s dropped twenty-six Joint Direct Attack Munitions while working with ground-based forward air controllers. All twenty-six bombs were direct hits. Many of the pilots, who mostly flew air-to-air combat missions in F-15Cs, were dropping bombs for the first time in this exercise. Northern Edge was the first time operational F-22 pilots dropped munitions while working with forward air controllers in a close air support role.

Of the 105 scheduled Raptor sorties in the exercise, 102 actually launched. This ninety-seven percent sortie generation rate for the twelve deployed F-22s certainly contributed to the overall results: aircraft availability being a prerequisite for combat effectiveness. “The ability to work away from the support and supply structure of our home station and still produce such high sortie generation figures is arguably the largest success of the entire Alaska deployment,” says Tolliver.

More Subtle Firsts
The F-22 can claim another first in this Northern Edge: the first time the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine units combined F-22s and F/A-18s to fly integrated defensive counter air tactics. “The integration of this fifth-generation aircraft with our legacy forces creates a much more lethal and survivable force than we have ever seen before,” explains Tolliver. “The F-22’s sensors and the integrated avionics produced so much battlespace awareness that we were able to share critical information with other platforms.” This sharing increased the lethality and survivability of less-capable fighters. “That is truly transformational. We can complement, direct, and assist other platforms from the cockpit of our single-seat fighters. Even though we have never functioned as joint forces before, we found it works great.”

Capt. Schantz adds some specifics. “F-22 pilots have the ability to use sensors to a greater degree than any other fighter pilots because of the Raptor’s sensor fusion capability,” he explains. “The F-22 scope is fully integrated to show the entire battlespace. In the heat of the fight, we can provide necessary information to other pilots at that right moment because we are fighter pilots talking to other fighter pilots.”

Schantz explains that, even though an AWACS has thirty radar controllers aboard with a lot of combined situational awareness, information on their scopes is displayed as radar blips. “Our F-22 blips show what type of aircraft we’re seeing,” he says. “The information is deciphered for us so that we can sort friend from foe much more easily.”

The Raptor starts with more situational awareness than an F-16, F-15, or F/A-18. “The Raptor is a light year ahead of those fighters,” explains Brig. Gen. Burton Field, commander of the 1st FW at Langley. “Assessing the situation and melding the radar picture of a four-ship so everyone has the same situational awareness can be extremely demanding in fourth-generation fighters.”

The Raptor begins with immediate situational awareness that can be provided to other assets in the fight. “We can make each one of those players better, and we can make the entire force better. Sharing that situational awareness at the right time and in the right manner requires a different skill set than the one needed to operate a legacy fighter effectively. Those new skills are more associated with the skills of a mission commander.”

Mission commander or battle manager may not be the right term. “I don’t think we have an accepted term for the function of a Raptor pilot in a large-scale force,” Field continues. “We aren’t necessarily in charge of the fight, but we can play a more prominent role in the fight than any other aircraft. I don’t think we have the vocabulary or the tactical mindset that fits the capabilities offered by the F-22. We may not have the operational mindset either.”